Righting/Rewriting Arab History in Arab American Narrative (Published)
Arab nation is one of the most ancient nations in the world. Their history goes back to The Bronze Age (3200–1300 BC). However, such a history is totally distorted as it was written according to the whims of the colonizers. Arab history has been massively transformed; their culture deprecated and entirely disparaged; their wealth plundered. However, some Arab and Arab-American writers have started a mission to rewrite the deformed history of Arabs. One of these writers is Samia Serageldin, whose novel The Naqib’s Daughter is a rewriting of the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. The present article argues that Egyptian history has been defaced by the colonial powers and that Serageldin has succeeded in bringing to light the false claims of the colonists. The article maintains that the novel is a counter-discursive postcolonial novel, in which Serageldin attempts to right and rewrite the history of Egypt from the point of view of Egyptians themselves. The article aims also at analyzing The Naqib’s Daughter in terms of the contemporary political developments in the Arab world and the role played by world superpowers in shaping and reshaping the contemporary history.
Keywords: Colonialism, Egypt, French invasion, history, rewriting